Henry Button followed his parents and members of his family, who had emigrated in 1833, to Van Diemen's Land in the Andromeda arriving first in Hobart Town in November 1837 and finally in George Town on 18 December 1837. Some of his brief education after he arrived in Launceston to join his family was provided by the Reverend John West. West, with James Aikenhead and Button's uncle Jonathon Stammers Waddell, had established the Launceston Examiner newspaper in 1842 and on 19 June 1844 Button became an apprentice printer for the newspaper and a reporter in March 1849.
Except for a brief period on the Victorian goldfields in early 1852 and a move to Hobart Town in August 1852 to work on the Colonial Times for a year, the rest of Button's working life was associated with the Examiner. In March 1855 he was again a reporter on the Examiner and after his uncle, Waddell, died on 9 December 1857, Button bought one of the paper's two remaining proprietorships and joined James Aikenhead's son William Aikenhead as publisher of the paper. In 1887 he became sole proprietor. He retired in 1898.
Henry Button was also a poet. Some of his poems were published in the Examiner. His Memories of Fifty Years of Courtship and Wedded Life 1847-1897 was published by the Examiner in 1899, and a book, Flotsam and Jetsam, Floating Fragments of Life in England and Tasmania : An Autobiographical Sketch with an Outline of Responsible Government, was published in 1909.
Source: J. C. Horner, 'Button, Henry (1829-1914)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/button-henry-3131/text4665, accessed 13 February 2013.
